Dear Editor: I recently learned about the University of Wisconsin’s plan to commit $11.4 million to building a laboratory for Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a UW faculty member and one of the world’s leading viral researchers. Dr. Kawaoka intends to study the 1918 Spanish flu, which essentially was extinct before he and his colleagues revived it, and the Ebola virus, in his new state-of-the-art facility.
Perusing the minutes of the 2005 UW Biosafety Committee meetings, in which Dr. Kawaoka was granted approval to study these two deadly diseases in his current lab, I see that the committee expressed substantial safety concerns.